Remembered what I was planning to write about last night which was the several Project Runway marathons that ran over the holiday weekend. They were on the Style Network (part of the NBC-Univercast family o' cathode fun). I. Not one of our regular TV destinations so we completely missed season one, stumbling across it only in time to catch the final runway shows. None of the Bravo seasons are on DVD (and may well never be after all the acrimony surrounding the move to Lifetime), so it's nice to see them again. Meant to record the Sunday marathon but screwed up and forgot. I blame the heat. I assume that was either season 2 (sorry if I missed Santino's always fabulous Tim Gunn impression) or season 3 (not sorry if I missed Jeffrey, whom I found hateful, and Laura, who was just annoying -- altho that season did feature Vincent's classic Paris meltdown about laundry). We've been working our way thru season 4 (Christian, Chris, Rami, Sweet P). What I'm noticing this time is that season 4 is set apart from most other Runway seasons by its lack of a heavy. No Wendy or Jeffrey or Ivy or Gretchen or Emilio. Or Santino. Sarah and I were talking about this and when I suggested that season 2 had also been mostly villain-free, she said that Santino had been that season's heel. I guess it's because that show he does w/ Austen and his appearances on Drag Race have softened his image but I mostly remembered the Tim Gunn impressions and the stories about Tim and Andrae going to Red Lobster and the Michael Kors "lighten up, it's just fashion" song. But Sarah pointed out that he was often abusive to other contestants and judges, particularly if they were women.
I think the editors tried to do that a bit w/ Christian but, even tho I'm aware that many people found him insufferable, he doesn't really fit any of the various "villain" models that they've used over the years when building the narrative arc of each season.
It's interesting watching the show knowing where it's going and noticing how things are being set up. The editing has paused several times Rami's fondness for draping and jersey and the fact that the judges want to get him outside his comfort zone. And I still think that Chris being eliminated only to return (when Jack had to leave for medical treatment) and then make it all the way to the finals is one of the more interesting storylines they've ever had. It illustrates something that gets said a lot on Top Chef, that one bad day can send you home. Altho, somewhat oddly, so far the editors have left in very few mentions of Chris being eliminated and brought back. There was a funny scene where Victorya and Jillian are bemoaning/one-upping each other on how often they've been in the bottom three and then Chris, sitting at a nearby sewing machine, trumps 'em all with his "well, I got eliminated!" End of conversation. But I don't think I've heard the judges say anything about having eliminated him and now seeing him do so well. That may come later in the season.

As I mentioned last month, André Leon Talley is guest judging this cycle of ANTM. Fabulous! Of course, I'm not the only one who noticed. Gawker has been doing an awesome André Leon Talley report card. There's still time to get caught up before the finale. Not sure exactly why Talley is showing up in the various media more often this spring. In addition to ANTM, there was a story in the NYTimes recently about him and his new pal Whoopi Goldberg. Maybe he's on the outs with Anna Wintour. Or maybe he's just figuring that, with the state of the magazine business these days, it's not a bad time to diversity one's media presence. Or maybe I have no idea what the hell I'm talking about.

I'm thinking I may give up on the Fashion Show (aka Bravo's FU to the Weinsteins and Project Runway). I love Isaac and there have been some moments but the show's just missing something and the designers really haven't grown on me all that much. I'll give it one more week but once Top Chef Masters starts up I might switch over to that. There's a limit to how many reality TV shows I wanna be following.
That said, there were a couple of fine moments tonight. Miss Kelly Rowland attempted to out-diva Isaac. Did not work and that is not gonna happen. And to prove the point, later in the show Mizrahi hand-waved away the president of Manolo Blahnik USA as tho he were an annoying gnat of some sort. George Malkemus (who was a guest judge) was trying to make a point about how one of the designs in the bottom two was very saleable and he knew because his background was in sales etc etc. And Mizrahi just cut him off with the observation that this was not Top Salesman. Already this season we've learned that this is not Top Seamstress either. And I assume it's also not Top Scallop.